Wednesday, October 2, 2013

''It was born of the sea,
evolved to land and conquered the skies. Menacing and wicked. Brutal and
unforgiving. A nightmare come true. Just one listen and you've become part of
the breed. From pleasure to pain and back. When you've summoned the angel of death,
it is then that you will come face to face with Vermithrax. A new type of
judgement is here. You're just in time to enjoy the Feast.''

The band brings
together former founding members of Nunslaughter, Reading Zero and Mercnary
under the metallic wings of Vermithrax. Why did you all leave your previous
bands? I believe Jer was in the military and left Nunslaughter then, but
the other had just run their course at their time. We are still great friends
with all of our past bandmates and wish them nothing but success.

How did you come
together to form Vermithrax? Our drummer, Jer and I had spoken about our
love for earlier thrash for the longest time and how not many bands do it like
the bands that we grew up on. We had been talking for a while about putting
something together, but once we found a guitarist that we knew that played
similar music, we jumped at the chance. Soon after we ran ads on the Internet
looking for a guitarist and bassist. The guitarist, Scott had turned out to be
the guy in Jer’s last band and yet he could write in the exact style we were
after. The bassist that we called had also been in that band years previous. At
the time, he had just had an injury that required surgery, so he wasn’t able to
commit. A year and several players later, Tom was healed up and able to
play/write. We replaced the other guitar player and recently added Jon to the
band. We are now a cohesive unit in constant writing mode. Let the Metal
commence!

Has the experience
from being in the metal scene for so long contributed to what you now do in
Vermitharx and did being in bands prior teach you anything that has hepled
you in Vermithrax? Considerably. We
know exactly what we want and have a good idea on how to get there without
having to repeat many of the same mistakes a newer or younger band make. We
know when to say no and when to leave space. That is the biggest lessons that
bands need to learn.

Why the name
Vermithrax, who came up with the name and the classic logo? The band name
was agreed upon by everyone and comes from the movie, Dragonslayer. We knew
that musically we wanted to have a basic storyline and a powerful figure would
be needed to convey our music visually. I had the basic logo idea and everyone
had input to our graphic artist, Joe. He brought it to life.

The debut Ep is a
perfect balance of thrashing metal fury,
classic metal tendencies with a progressive edge. How did the songs for the Ep
come about? Thank you! That’s a great compliment, since that is what we
wanted more than anything to come from the debut to the listener. We wanted to
show the different influences in the 19 minutes of the EP we put out. We also
hoped that labels would see the potential of a band that doesn’t just deliver
one dimensional metal. WE shall see, but many labels have put out very cookie
cutter metal lately and the right ones will know when they hear us that we are
a different breed. We wanted to treat the release like the old tape trading
days as well, when you could find a new band for free from another friends
sharing it with you. That is why we have intially released the digital download
of the EP for free. We kind of thought of our giving it away as a, ‘Metal Pay
Forward’ type thing, where they will hopefully feel encouraged as a fan to help
us build our audience and share it with as many friends as possible.

The songs are fully
realised and well put together which is unusual for a debut release, did you
live with the songs for some time and constantly tweak them until they were
just right? We demoed the songs before recording them and played out a few
times before releasing the EP, so it gave us a little more time to find and
build on their true potential. We do that with most of our songs and we wrote
quite a few others during that same time that will appear on the full length
that are working on in our studios now.

How has the
response to the songs from fans been so far? Both live and on the studio
recordings we have had an amazing response. It’s now in the hands of our
friends and fans to help it reach the masses.

How about labels has
anyone shown any interest in signing the band? We haven’t gone after labels
as of yet, but we hope the right one has it’s eyes and ears on the scene and
sees the potential that Vemrithrax can bring to the table. We have the means to
do our studio recordings to major label standards, as well as worldwide
distribution, but the right label can bring it’s marketing expertise and
physical distribution to the fold and this beast could really grow.

Do you ever think about taking the independant route
and using something like bandcamp to sell your music directly to the fans?
That will certainly be an option to explore. We do enjoy having 100% of our
artistic control. We may try crowdsourcing to get the money to put out a proper
release.

How does it differ
playing the songs to an audienece, do the songs come to life in the live
setting?

Most people tell us that we are even better live. I remember
always feeling that way about bands like Iron Maiden, Testament, Flotsam, Dio
and Slayer, so we love that compliment and therefore have a very high standard
for how we play live.

Do you prefer to play
live or are you more of a studio band? I think overall most of the band
would choose live, but both have their magic and their challanges. We look
forward to taking our music to other countries, so once that happens, we might
lean even more towards live.

Have you toured much
in support of the Ep so far? A good
amount of dates, but we are more focused right now on getting the full length
out there.

Any plans to take the show over to Europe? That would be the plan.
It takes the help of people like you and our fans to help create the demand for
festivals to seek us out.

How strong is the metal scene in your country? The US will always
have a very loyal metal scene, but it is spread out across a massive country,
so it doesn’t always translate to audience attendence depending on where you
play.

How do you think it differs from over here in Europe? Europe seems
to appreciate diversity and bands that contain classic metal as well as the progressive
edge that pushes the envelope a bit more. It doesn’t seem as segregated.

Who are the bands
primary influences? The Bay Area Thrash Scene was a huge part of our
influences, as well as classic metal like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio,
Sabbath, Ozzy and next generation like Fates Warning, Crimson Glory, etc.

What does metal mean
to you? Metal is the flag for which many of us stand for, regardless of
where we are located, age or race. To us, it’s a true family. When you have
been abandoned by all others, metal will always be there.

If you could only
bring five metals albums to a desert island with you what would they be? Slayer:
Reign In Blood, Black Sabbath: Live
Evil, Iron Maiden: Live After
Death, Metallica: Master Of Puppets, Fates Warning: Awaken The Guardian

Finally anything you
would like to say to the fans and our readers? We appeciate the amazing
support we’ve been given, hope that they help us reach even more people, so
that we may grow and stay metal! Please
visit our pages and show your support! www.VermithraxMetal.com
& www.facebook.com/VermithraxMetal